Guide to Advancement - What Needs to Change?

[moosetracker]

Are you stating the majority of Scoutmasters are going to side with you and feel the scout does not need to do anything correctly just as long as he goes through the motions, Right or wrong or inbetween?..

 

Who is micro interpreting? You are stating that since the requirements don't state on each and every line that the requirement have to be done correctly, then they need not be done correctly..

[bnelon44]

moosetracker,

 

You said "Second class 3b.

 

On one of these campouts, select your patrol site and sleep in a tent that you pitched. Explain what factors you should consider when choosing a patrol site and where to pitch a tent. "

 

"Normal factors are look up to make sure that there is nothing of danger above, look down for poision ivy, water run off areas, animal pathway of moose, bear etc.. make sure you aren't building it on an active Railroad track etc.. (It is all in the BS Handbook what they should look for). "

 

I think you are correct, most Scoutmasters (I have taught literally hundreds of them) will agree with you that accounting for normal factors, at least what they would encounter in a normal local campout, would be included in the explination.

 

Do you not sign them off if they miss one of them where they pitch their tent? I think Scoutmasters would probably reply that it would depend on how serious of a breach it was. I don't think many Scoutmasters would signing them off for pitching a tent on a railroad track.(This message has been edited by bnelon44)

[moosetracker]

If they are already signed off and pull a blupper, then a simple reminder..

 

If they are being signed off, they they should activly look for the best spot, and be able to explain what they choose as the "best" spot and why.. So an explanation of "I know there should be no dead branches over us, but since we are camping in a pine forest with all the trees having dead branches 7 feet up, I choose this spot because, there were no large overhanging branches creaking in the wind.." or "I know we are suppose to try and find a flat surface, but the whole campsite is on a slope, so I choose this spot because, there are fewer roots and rocks, and we faced the tents in this direction so that everyone is sleeping with their heads uphill.."

 

Things like that would be fine, but they should know why they chose the spot, and what they were suppose to be looking for, and how they compensated for not being able to find perfection. Why was this the best of limited choices. All that he can do in the piece on "Explain"..

 

If they setup under the only tree in a meadow, when it has the dangerous overhang dead branch.. or in the one poison ivy patch.. And there are 20 other better places to set up, and they can not explain why, this spot was a better (less dangerous spot).. Then doesn't matter what rank you wish to set to the problem area, the boy failed to choose a good site..

[Beavah]

Normal factors are look up to make sure that there is nothing of danger above, look down for poision ivy, water run off areas, animal pathway of moose, bear etc.. make sure you aren't building it on an active Railroad track etc..

 

Yah, but bnelon44, none of those things are mentioned in da requirements, eh? Now you're just adding to the requirements because you think those things should be normal factors.

 

Yah, dkurtenbach, yeh raise a good point with the fires thing. When that was added, the note that went out stated that the reason it was added was because so many places had long-standing burn bans in place. But if "the requirements" are the Idol to which we all owe allegiance, then such things as historical interpretive notes don't count. Any boy can pile some wood up, just like he only has to "discuss" safety procedures for stoves and fires, not actually employ them.

 

I agree with yeh as well that novice leaders and boys only read "the requirements", so that fixing them up a bit would help more, but there's no easy way to do that if the standard is making 'em immune to lawyering the meaning of "is". I still think that making appropriate changes in emphasis to G2A would help because it would give better direction to the advanced-beginner leaders who are looking farther and tryin' to do better. Or at least it would reduce the number of district folks givin' bad advice.

 

Honestly, if advancement were really as bnelon44 describes, then the proper response for most good troops would be to dump it and come up with their own awards. It wouldn't take too long before there was a nationwide network of troops using a competing award system. Sort of like da way honor societies like OA and the tribe of Mic-o-Say sprouted up at one point.

 

Happily, that's not what advancement really is or is meant to be, even though the BSA materials waffle around a bit and wander away from the Rules & Regulations.

 

B

[bnelon44]

Getting back to the original post. Maybe if people could review the GTA and specifically suggest changes to particular sections it would be of some use to the discussion?

 

 

[Eagle92]

In regards to the BP drawing, thankfully there was not G2SS at the time and all one needed was common sense.

 

In regards to the current BSHB and fire building, it's not just that skill but a bunch of other ones as well. Kinda sad when you are conducting an IOLS weekend, and when you go to use the current BSHB, you find it so inadequate on outdoor skills, that you have to use online sources to "cut and paste" information to create your own outdoor skills booklet.

 

That and go to your bookcase and start taking down old BSHBs and Fieldbooks that have the info.

 

A few examples of missing info off the top of my head include sharpening axes and saws, lashings and projects you can build, what to look for in selecting a backpack and how to pack it, etc.

 

It got to the point I was cutting and pasting BROWNSEA 22 and JLT activities and infomration into the IOLS booklet.

 

An aside, and changing the topic a bit. BNELLON, have you too found the lack of info in the BSHB for IOLS too?

[JMHawkins]

Getting back to the original post. Maybe if people could review the GTA and specifically suggest changes to particular sections it would be of some use to the discussion?

 

As I said way back on page 1, "So, short summary: define the goals not the process, and explicitly require the adult(s) approving advancement to use judgement in determining if the scout has earned the award."

 

The opening paragraph should state "Adults overseeing the advancement process should keep in mind that Advancement is to be for recognition of actual ability. Requirements should be interpreted in a way that ensures proficiency in the skill covered. Good judgement on the part of adult leaders is necessary, and 'strict interpretation' of the rules should never be substitued for good judgement."

 

Also, as I said earlier, just delete the "don't add to the requirements" nonsense and let adults set the bar they want to set. They're going to anyway, make it explicit.

[dkurtenbach]

Changes to particular sections of the Guide to Advancement? Sure: Delete them all. Abolish the Guide. Include all interpretative comments right there in the back of the Boy Scout Handbook and in the annual Requirements book, integrated with the rank requirements themselves so that they are up front and obvious for everyone to see.

 

Dan Kurtenbach

Fairfax, VA

[Lisabob]

Gee, bnelon, I think you will find (upon review of this thread) that there have been quite a few specific changes proposed. I know that I proposed at least two, one of which even quoted from the GtA. What more do you want.

[Twocubdad]

You want us to rewrite the guide for you? Actually, I'm cool with that. SERIOUSLY!

 

Beav has actually done a pretty good job. Take his post from Monday morning in which he suggest incorporating language similar to the bylaws (and gets started in the food safety example) and adopt it wholesale into the Advancement Guide. I'm actually thinking about putting it into our troop handbook.

 

Here's another start -- Get folks on the committee who aren't advancement wonks, but line-serving unit scouters who believe advancement should work TOWARD the overall mission and aims of Scouting rather than against them. Replace the everyone-gets-a-trophy types and the professional who believe the goal of advancement policy should to give everyone a badge so they continue to pay their membership fees.

 

I nominate Beavah.

[Eagle92]

As a former council and national employee, my expereince is the further up the food chain you are, the less idea of what is going on in the field. So the idea of getting folks in the field involved is a GREAT one, and there is historical precedent for it. If memory serves, several editions of the BSHB were "pre-published" for review and editing by folks in the field.

 

As I stated, the higher up you go, the less involved and knowledgable about the field you are. My old SE and DFS didn't have a clue as to what was going on in units, and what unit leaders needed, unless they were directly affected by it, i.e. exec boards members asked for it or high level FOS donors still workings with units.

 

When I worked for national supply, by boss had no clue, zero absolutely NO IDEA, what was involved in working at a summer camp. True story, one of my duties in the pilot program was to create a standard operating procedure manual for summer camp trading posts. Ok find and dandy, spend 2 months writing it it up for review. Boss had no clue, couldn't understand some of the things I was doing and why, and started asking one of my coworkers what they though about XYZ at camp since they had a son in Scouting. Coworker responded, " How the heck would I know, I've never been to camp before. Ask [Eagle92] he's the expert, he's worked at summer camp how many years?" Only after the second year of the pilot, when the boss was assigned Jambo duties, did they have any idea of what was up with summer camp trading posts.

 

An Aside. if you got council level leaders getting involved when they can to keep a pulse on things, BE THANKFUL. Not many pros like that around.

 

 

[bnelon44]

Eagle92 said: "An aside, and changing the topic a bit. BNELLON, have you too found the lack of info in the BSHB for IOLS too? "

 

We have always supplimented what is available in the handbooks, and have done so for decades before I was involved in training. I compiled some of the stuff here, it dates back quite a number of years.

http://www.bsatroop14.com/outdoor

 

Twocubdad,

Most of what Beavah pointed out were issues with how the requirements were written. Requirements are not in the GTA. Of course he did say that we should have the lattitude to change the requirements (if I understand him correctly) to fit local troop needs. Personally I think that ain't gonna happen. The idea of not changing the requirements from what is written is too ingrained into the advancement process (it has been there since day one.)

 

He also suggested, if I understand correctly, that the BOR should be able to retest and flunk a Scout who doesn't retain knowledge in anything he was signed off for previously (that is also Eagle92's suggestion.) That is simply not workable given the time constraints of the boy getting Eagle by 18 (see my example of him failing and EBOR and not having time to relearn a skill, or series of skills, or something he learned in a meritbadge 6 years prior, before aging out. You guys can bash one and done as much as you want, but no one has presented a workable alternative as far as advancement is concerned.

 

Personally I like making sure the Scout actually accomplishes the requirement on his own prior to signing him off. I also like the idea of waiting a short period of time between the learning of a skill and the examination for the skill (say a week or two).

 

But those are my ideas, your ideas may very.

 

(This message has been edited by bnelon44)

[Twocubdad]

My reading of Beavah posts, beginning Monday, 6/19 about 11am, was he was providing an overall policy-level perspective that the intent of the advancement program is for scouts to gain a working knowlege of the underlying skill behind a requirement, not to just technically meet the requirement in a legalistic, hair-splitting way. In Beav's example, while rattling off, "wash your hands, keep cooked food separate from raw meat and keep hot things hot/cold things cold" may technically meet the requirement, Beavah's POLICY would be for boys to have a working understanding of food safety and, if fact, the ability to keep himself and his patrol from getting sick. (And of course, Da Beav is perfectly capable of clairfying his own posts.)

 

Was is a final draft policy statement? No. But a dang fine starting point. You started this thread looking for suggested changes to advancement policy. You've been given 10 pages (minus your responses) of very clear suggestions. However you only want to defend your intrepretation of the current policy. And now a suggestion isn't a suggestion until it's in final draft form?

 

I'm curious of your connection to the national advancement folks. Is there more to this than you are letting on?

[Eagle92]

Benelon,

 

Back in the day, I do not remember having to come up with your own handouts for doing basic outdoor skill portion of SMF training. Now some of the specialty stuff, i.e. dutch oven and oven box cooking, yes I did get a handout. But the T-2-1 skills were in the handbook. Now they are not. that's why I asked.

 

 

And THANK YOU (and yes I'm screaming at the top of my lungs ) for sharing the link.

 

FYI here's one I used

 

http://www.bsatroop780.org/skills/AllSkills.html

 

[bnelon44]

Twocubdad

 

Thanks for the summary, I think you are correct. However, I think most of what beavah is after can be handled in the requirements. In other words, you have the Scouts DO or Demonstrate, not just explain (which is what the requirement says now about food safety.) That isn't a change to the GTA.

 

The reason for the thread is because I have seen around here a lot of complaints about the GTA and I wanted to find out what, exactly, the issues were.

 

I have to teach this stuff to Scoutmasters and the more I understand potential issues the better for my job (I'm the district training chair for my districct.)

 

As was pointed out at the beginning of the thread if you want to get these ideas to national there is an email you can send to.

 

but I thought expressing them in a thread would be beneficial to the list (and to me as I try to understand issues Scoutmasters face)

 

And yes, I am still involved with a unit. I am the committee chair and eagle advisor for a troop in Phoenix. The same troop I was the scoutmaster for for 8+ years.(This message has been edited by bnelon44)